Age, Biography and Wiki

Harry Haft was born to a Jewish family in Bełchatów, Poland. He was the youngest of four children. His father, Herschel (Hertzko) Haft, was a tailor. His mother, Chana, was a homemaker. At the age of 15, Harry was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. He was forced to fight in a boxing ring for the entertainment of the Nazi officers. He was able to survive the camp and eventually immigrated to the United States in 1947. Harry began his professional boxing career in 1948. He fought in the middleweight division and had a record of 24 wins, 8 losses, and 1 draw. He was known for his aggressive style and powerful punches. In 1951, Harry was featured in the movie "The Harder They Fall" starring Humphrey Bogart. He was also featured in the documentary "The Life and Times of Harry Haft" in 2008. Harry Haft is 82 years old and has a net worth of $1 million. He has earned his wealth through his boxing career and his appearances in movies and documentaries. He currently lives in New York City.

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 28 July. He is a member of famous boxer with the age 82 years old group.

Harry Haft Height, Weight & Measurements

At 82 years old, Harry Haft height is 5 ft and Weight Heavyweight.

Dating & Relationship status

He is currently single. He is not dating anyone. We don't have much information about He's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, He has no children.

Harry Haft Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2022-2023. So, how much is Harry Haft worth at the age of 82 years old? Harry Haft’s income source is mostly from being a successful boxer. He is from Poland. We have estimated Harry Haft's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets.

Harry Haft Social Network

Timeline

In 2018, a film about Haft was announced. The biographical film, titled The Survivor, is directed by Barry Levinson and stars Ben Foster as Haft. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2021 and was released on HBO on April 27, 2022, Yom HaShoah, Israel's Holocaust remembrance day.

In April 2007, Haft was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. He died in November of the same year, of cancer in Pembroke Pines, Florida at the age of 82.

Haft told his life's story to his son Alan Scott in 2003, who edited and published it in 2006, with contributions from historians John Radzilowski and Mike Silver. On the basis of the published biography, Reinhard Kleist created a graphic novel, which was published sequentially in the German periodical Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung during 2011. The book was nominated for a 2014 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel.

In 1948, aged 22, he emigrated to the US with the help of an uncle in New Jersey. There he made his living by competing as a light heavyweight prizefighter during 1948 to 1949. Haft's professional record comprises 21 fights, of a total of 104 rounds, with 13 wins (8 by KO) and 8 losses (5 by KO). His height was recorded as 5′ 9″ (175 cm), and his weight as between 168 and 180 lb. He won his first twelve fights, but lost against a more experienced boxer, Irish-born Pat O'Connor in Westchester County Center on 5 January 1949. O'Connor had previously held Irish National light heavy and middleweight championships.

He had a convincing win on 14 January 1949 in Binghamton, New York, 1:14 into the first of six rounds, when he scored a knockout, with a right cross that broke the jaw of his opponent Billy Kilby. On 30 May 1949, though outweighed by 14 pounds, he defeated Johnny Pretzie in Brooklyn in a technical knockout, 2:38 into the fourth round. Pretzie was a strong puncher with an impressive knockout record, who had met Rocky Marciano only two months earlier.

After this win, his record, which had included only two wins since his loss to O'Connor, continued a turn for the worse. He lost to New Yorker Roland LaStarza on 27 June 1949 in a 4th-round TKO at Brooklyn's Coney Island. LaStarza was undefeated, had an exceptional record of 33 wins, and had taken several Golden Gloves light heavyweight championships in 1944-5. In 1953, LaStarza would challenge Rocky Marciano in a close fight for the World heavyweight championship. Haft's final fight was against future champion Rocky Marciano, on 18 July 1949 in Rhode Island Auditorium, in what was Marciano's 18th professional fight. Haft made a good showing in the first round, landing a blow to Marciano's stomach that was the bout's first punch, and went blow for blow in the first minute of the second, but was knocked out by Marciano in the first half of the third round after receiving a flurry of punches. In his biography, Haft claimed that he was threatened by the Mafia and forced to throw the fight against Marciano.

After his loss to Marciano, Haft retired. He married Miriam Wofsoniker in November 1949 and opened a fruit and vegetable store in Brooklyn. His eldest son Alan Scott was born in 1950, followed by a daughter and another son.

In 1945, Haft found refuge in a Displaced Person's Camp operated by the U.S. Army in occupied Germany. In January 1947, he won an "Amateur Jewish Heavyweight Championship" organized by the US army in post-war Munich, receiving a trophy by General Lucius Clay.

By 1942, because he was Jewish, Haft was imprisoned in several German-Nazi slave labor camps where he was beaten and starved. Because of his strong physical stature, by 1943 an SS overseer trained him to be a boxer, and had him compete at fights to the death in front of the military personnel. The fights took place at the concentration camp Jaworzno, which was situated at a coal mine north of Auschwitz. Haft fought a total of 76 fights there. When the camp in Jaworzno was dissolved because of the advancing Soviet Red Army, thousands of its surviving inmates were sent West on death marches to Germany. Haft managed to escape from one such march in April 1945. On the run, he killed a bathing German soldier and donned his uniform. During the remaining weeks until the end of the war, he moved from village to village. At one point he killed two elderly people who harbored him on their farm because he feared they had discovered he was not a German soldier and would turn him in to authorities.

Harry Haft (also known as Herschel Haft; born Hertzko or Hertzka Haft on 28 July 1925 in Bełchatów, Poland; died 3 November 2007) was a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp where he boxed fellow inmates to survive. He was briefly a professional boxer in post-war Germany, and boxed as a light heavyweight in the United States from 1948–1949.

Born in Bełchatów, Poland on 28 July 1925, Haft's father died when he was three years old. In 1939, when he was 14, Haft witnessed the invasion and German occupation of Poland. Under Nazi occupation, he ran a smuggling business with his older brother.